Category Archives: What we’re reading

Progress toward ending the HIV epidemic is challenged by threats to ACA – In a timely call for accountability, Chair of the HIV Medicine Association Dr. Melanie Thompson describes here how political battles to undermine the Affordable Care Act also undermine resources needed to win the war against HIV at home. Dr. Thompson, who also […]

Grateful for progress toward a disease-free world – In a world made smaller by travel, trade, and emerging infections, we’re grateful for physicians and researchers who work together across national borders to build a healthier world. Fogarty International Center Director Roger Glass discusses the progress those partnerships have yielded. Three decades on, stigma still stymies […]

Having narrowed its second round of finalists to four, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria today announced its selection of former Standard Bank chief executive, World Bank pandemic preparedness working group chair, and Harvard research fellow Peter Sands as the international charity’s fourth executive director. We’re reading about the process and the […]

Chopin’s heart, pickled in a jar, offers clues to his death – It took more than a century and a half, a gathering of scientists, church officials and Chopin institute leaders, as well as knowledge gained through modern medicine to determine, finally, that when the brilliant young composer Frédéric Chopin died in 1849, it was […]

Dear Secretary Tillerson – When Secretary of State Rex Tillerson testified before Congress last spring, he promised an examination in six months time of the Global Gag Rule, which, under a vast expansion under President Trump, lifts funding from foreign nongovernment organizations if they provide counseling, information, referrals or services to terminate pregnancies. We’ve heard […]

Director General rescinds Goodwill Ambassador appointment – These days we’ll take what we can get in good news for global health progress. So while the bad news is that World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus made the astonishing selection of Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe for WHO Goodwill Ambassador for noncommunicable diseases in Africa, the […]

“This means that people who take ART daily as prescribed . . . and achieve and maintain an undetectable viral load have effectively no risk of sexually transmitting the virus to an HIV-negative partner . . .” With these words the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention effectively put on the record a truth […]

While awaiting appropriations decisions that will establish the public health priorities and capacities for responding to infectious diseases at home and in countries around the world over the coming year, questions include how available moneys can be put to the most effective use. This week we’re reading about both policies and strategies that make a […]

Journal supplement delves into the rewards and challenges of chasing bugs no one wants to catch . . . Of all the specialties a young physician can enter, one that offers a career of saving lives and protecting communities, supporting social justice and alleviating suffering, while following questions and finding answers across health systems, neighborhoods […]

Goalkeepers: The stories behind the data – A companion piece to the data-dense Lancet review of health-related goals for 2030 released Tuesday, the stories behind the data told here focus on policies and practices that are pushing progress — through patient-focused health services, targeted use of new technologies, and greater investments — now. While acknowledging […]